The present invention relates to a method of abrading, on a commercial scale, garments, particularly new denim blue jeans, to give the jeans a faded look of the type found desirable by many customers. In the past, new blue jeans have been commercially faded by subjecting the blue jeans to repeated washings. In some cases, large stones of pumice, or the like, have been added to the washer. In every instance, however, the blue jeans have been treated wet, i.e., in a water or chemical bath.
The prior art methods of commercially fading blue jeans have been subject to several defects. In the first place, repeated washing and rinsing steps, sometimes accompanied by bleaching and chemical treatment steps, are very time consuming. Moreover, the use of large pumice stones in a wet washing process has resulted in the production of tears and wear holes in garments as well as excessive and rapid wear on the washing machines. As a result, previous methods of fading blue jeans are expensive both because of the excessive processing time required and its attendant labor costs and the cost of maintaining and replacing damaged equipment.
Such methods are also disadvantageous in that they result in jeans which are not uniformly faded, but rather have objectionable streaks. Typical prior art patents disclosing wet methods of fading blue jeans are Kappler et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,218,220 and Viramontes U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,887.